By: Ifeanyi Izeze
Except there is a radical attitudinal change, the present Senate under Godswill Akpabio may end up being the worst in the history of Nigeria’s democratic experiment. They’ve not only proven to be a rubber-stamp congregants of dubious, greedy, and selfish politicians, they’ve also proved that so far, they are the most casual and flimsiest of all the Senates we’ve had since 1999.
The impunity they flaunt in sealing most of their cruel and anti-people decisions shows that most times there has never been any genuine consideration of the interests of the terribly battered Nigerian populace they were supposed to be representing.
Since Akpabio’s caustic joke of letting the poor (Nigerians) breath, has the people ever been allowed to breath from the strangulating economic policies that most times sounds as if they are coming from the pit of hell?
Agreed, all the great countries doing well in the world: US, China, Japan, UK, Germany etc. are all big time borrowers. But they borrow for physical tangible and accountable projects including development infrastructures and/or programmes. Do they borrow for intangible high-sounding cost heads that’s neither here nor there?
No informed Nigerian is actually against borrowing but what we borrow for. You cannot be piling up hundreds of billions of dollars debt on absolute intangibility which you expect future generations to repay. Where are the impacts of these humongous monies they are borrowing every day?
This is a national disgrace. A clear failure of leadership. Leaders who truly mean well for their countries do not borrow endlessly and on flimsies.
No one should be under any illusions, the loans are being borrowed not to reshape Nigeria’s economy for the benefit of the generality of the people, the monies are for the good-for-nothing leadership and their cohorts on the corridors of power to loot at will.
The Federal Government is borrowing without a single framework in all its documents on how the loans would be repaid. And zero detailing on how the loan being secured would be judiciously expended to impact the ordinary Nigerians who have been grossly at the receiving end of this administration’s mindless economic policies.
Did the Deputy Senate President, Jibrin Barau (APC-Kano), who presided over the Tuesday July 22 Plenary, say “the entire country is being carried along in the borrowing plan.?”
No sir! We’re not all being carried along, wallahi. We no follow!
Just look at it, in June 2023 $500 million was borrowed for women programme to scale up women MPW PLC. Is this programme not in the spirit realm? Can Nigerians see it, who and where are the women?
Still in the same June 2023, $800 million was borrowed to cushion the impact of the petrol subsidy removal. Where, how? Was it the indomie palliatives? We were told the subsidy removal was to save money which will be deployed to better the lives of the ordinary Nigerians. And instead of the saving as we were told, they are borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars to cushion the negative effects of the action.
September 2023, under the same government, $700 million was borrowed again for Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment.
December 2023, $750 million was borrowed through what the government called Renewable Energy Scale-up.
Then in June 2024, $1.5 billion was borrowed to support Nigeria’s Reform for Economic Stabilisation to Enable Transformation.
Also in the same June 2024, $750 million again was borrowed and the government said it was for immediate financial and technical support for efforts to stabilise economy and to scale- up support to the poor and most economically at risk.
Curiously all the items we are borrowing on are things that have nothing to do with infrastructures development. The government is just borrowing on things we can’t have our hands on, intangibles.
How do you explain items such as Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment? What does that mean? Those adolescent girls, are they not in schools? Why not deploy the resources to upgrade the infrastructures in our various schools or even some select few both primary, secondary and, tertiary or even trade/vocational schools?
Just look at the manifest of loans the Tinubu government has collected in just two years and they may be more:
1.$750 million in June 2023,
2.$800 million in July 2023,
3.$7.4 billion + €100 million in December 2023,
4.₦2.94 trillion borrowed from July to December 2023,
5.₦6.53 trillion between December 2023 and March 2024,
6.$2.7 billion approved across 2023–2024,
7.$2.25 billion in June 2024,
8.$500 million in July 2024,
9.$1.57 billion in September 2024,
10.$6.45 billion total from World Bank by September 2024,
11.$2.209 billion in December 2024 for budget deficit,
12.And a shocking $21.5 billion + €2.1 billion + ¥15 billion approved in July 2025
Despite these massive loans, Nigeria still shows no significant growth. No steady power. No working infrastructure. No improved standard of living. No security of lives and property. No jobs for our teeming youths. Healthcare, zero. Rather they all prefer to go and die abroad.
Today Nigerians are not only chewing on fake statistics, we are choking on them without food or jobs.
Now 2 years into his 4-year tenure, Nigeria is classified as one of the hungriest nations in the world with millions of Nigerians not knowing where their next meal will come from.
As rightly remarked by Peter Obi, in a personally signed statement released via his X account last week, President Tinubu is now overfeeding Nigerians with wrong Statistics from wrong unemployment figures, wrong inflation figures, and now GDP rebasing, all to put a positive spin on our deteriorating economic and household conditions.
Disseminating incorrect statistics about the economic situation in Nigeria, is it not a dubious way to cover up his failures as President?
The World Bank has already projected that poverty in Nigeria will keep rising until 2027. That’s not just a statistic—it’s a warning.
The Tinubu administration is busy feeding Nigerians not with food but with false statistics from wrong unemployment figures to fake inflation metrics to the controversial GDP rebasing, all to paint a fantasy picture of economic growth while the real people suffer, starve and migrate out of frustration.
This administration is more interested in how it looks. Instead of planning economy, it rebases the GDP to impress global investors. Instead of delivering results, it quotes spreadsheet that does not match reality anywhere on ground across the six geopolitical zones of the country.
When you think you have seen it all as the nation experienced with the immediate past government of Gen Mohammadu Buhari where incompetence, corruption, nepotism and outright stealing of our common patrimony was enthroned as a way of governance, the Tinubu administration is continuing “the good work of Buhari” just that he is now taking it to heights that can only be judged by the Angels of the Almighty as pure evil and outright wickedness.
Nigeria! Nigeria! God has not forgotten you. There’s a day of judgement when every man will be judged according to his/her works of trust by the people. Amen!
(IFEANYI IZEZE writes from Abuja: iizeze@yahoo.com; 234-8033043009)
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